A pretty girl with a fondness for clothes and no apparent religious vocation, Lutgardis was sent to the Black Benedictineconvent near Saint Trond at age 12 because her dowry had been lost in a failed business venture, and there was thus little chance for a life as a normal, marriedlay woman. In her late teens Lutgardis received a vision of Christ showing her His wounds, and in 1194 at age 20 she became a Benedictinenun with a true vocation. She had visions of Christ while in prayer, experienced ecstacies, levitated, and dripped blood from forehead and hair when enraptured by the Passion. Chosen as prioress of her community in 1205, she repeatedly refused to be abbess.

The Benedictine order was not strict enough for Lutgardis, and on the advice of her friend SaintChristina the Astonishing, in 1208 she joined the Cistercians at Aywieres (near Brussels in modern Belgium) where she lived for her remaining 30 years. She displayed the gifts of healing, prophecy, spiritual wisdom, and was an inspired teacher on the Gospels. Blind for the last eleven years of her life, she treated the affliction as a gift – it reduced the distraction of the outside world. In one of her last visions, Christ told her when she was to die; she spent the time remaining in prayer for the conversion of sinners.